How did you end up in recruiting?

Every week, I'll write you a letter. A letter about anything, really. My goal is just to make you think.
Then, I handpick 3 ideas and posts you'll love (and learn from).

My favorite thing about social media is that we get the chance to meet people we never would. While there are some people I’d love to forget (both them and their d*ck pics), there are far more I’m so thankful to have in my life.

In that first “real” conversation when we finally get together for that call or drink, I always ask the same question: how did you end up recruiting?

There is no school or formal training, so the stories are always different. Inevitably, the answer always tells me the story of this remarkable human. It shows me who they are. I learn about family, career stumbles, and what they value most.

There’s always one theme. Along the way, people were disrespected entirely at work. They stumbled on recruiting as a chance to shift the broken power balance of hiring. To stop the inhumane ways we treat and talk to each other. To quit pretending that changing jobs doesn’t change a life.

They saw recruiting as a chance to help others and decided to help someone else. Those are my people.

I can bond with just about anyone over fixing those problems. That’s why I started Three Ears - fixing the problems that begin in hiring when we can’t even explain what we’re trying to find.

Real talk: I also started it because I was also treated like shit at work. I wrote about that in an article about 3 of my worst bosses this week for Fistful of Talent. My blog of the week is about the fact that “3+ years experience” means nothing, and how you can fix it. Finally, one of the best posts I’ve read in a long time about workplace culture.

Whether it’s tomorrow or in ten years, bad managers are lessons in disguise. Lessons most of us don’t learn until we’re talking about it in therapy or explaining how work operates to our teenagers. Thankfully, I figured out a few of these lessons for you, thanks to my own bad bosses.